YMMV / Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There are many different theories as to the nature of Harry and Cheryl's relationship, usually bordering somewhere between "guilty over Harry's death" and straight-up Electra complex. Some of the endings make these varying interpretations more or less likely.
• Awesome Music:
  • As always with Akira Yamaoka, the soundtrack tends to set the tone in every portion of the game.
  • Mary Elizabeth McGlynn recorded the vocals for all four endings and each one is amazing.
• Base-Breaking Character: Lisa Garland gets hit with this again, for similar reasons to Silent Hill: Origins (which is no coincidence, given the two games share the same writer). Many people were happy to see their favorite nurse return and liked her brief stint in the plot and her banter with Harry. Others felt she was a boring Flat Character who was clearly shoehorned into the game for the homage despite not contributing to the plot at all.
• Broken Base:
  • The complete lack of combat in the game. Many found it a refreshing change at the time^note This game actually preceded the Run or Die style of horror games made popular by the likes of Slender to the "fire into hordes of monsters and hope you survive" approach Resident Evil took in later years and the combat-heavy Homecoming, while others felt it flat-out didn't make sense at some points. Some argue that even if Harry couldn't kill the monsters, a weapon could have easily slowed them down and made the chase segments less frustrating, while others argue something like that would have made the chase segments feel less frantic and terrifying than they are in the game.
  • The monsters only appearing in chase segments. As one reviewer put it, while they're incredibly tense and terrifying, outside of them, you're unlikely to feel frightened since there are no monsters there, which can make the game feel dull during those segments. Others argue the monsters only appearing in chase segments makes the otherworld all the more terrifying.
• Contested Sequel: Reactions towards this game are all over the place depending on who’s consulted. Is it a truly unique take of the original games story that brings it back to survival over action all while still manages to capture the feel of the earlier games, a bland, style over substance retread of the first game with questionable portrayals of the previously established characters and tepid gameplay, or a decent enough horror game that’s just a middle of the road Silent Hill game? The amount of detail put into it, especially the gameplay of motion controls that contribute to the ending, and its influence seen in other visual novel-like games (which has also become popular in the next decade) has made people look back at it fondly.
• Fanon: It's a very common belief that this game is actually a Stealth Sequel to the original game, not a reimagining, and takes places after the Bad ending where it is revealed that Harry died in a car crash and the events of that game were a dying hallucination. However, there is nothing actually in Shattered Memories to suggest this, and it is officially in an Alternate Continuity, unconnected to the events of the original game (or Silent Hill 3, for that matter).
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A frequent criticism leveled against the game. Its fans maintain that it's just as long as any other Silent Hill game, only with most of the aimless wandering, tedious combat and obscure puzzles trimmed.
• Magnificent Bastard: Dr. M. Kaufmann is an unorthodox but brilliant psychoanalyst. Taking to the field dead set on proving his theories after medical school, his career soars thanks to his methods, with even Kaufmann's aggressive style and accusations of an affair with a patient doing nothing to diminish his success. Meeting the troubled Cheryl Heather Mason concerning delusions from guilt following her father's death, Kaufmann ruthlessly breaks down Cheryl's mental defenses through terror to get to the heart of her suffering, proving her best chance at moving on and living a good life.
• Tear Jerker: No matter what ending you get, it's hard to hold the tears back when you see Harry talk to Cheryl before he disappears forever.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Despite being a reimaging and not a remake, people still complain about the major changes from the original game. Chief among them is the new, frozen-over Otherworld is simply nowhere near as scary as the nightmarish, visceral "blood & rust" hellscape of the 1999 original.
• Vindicated by History: Downplayed. While not outright hated even at the time, it was, and still is, one of the most highly debated sequels in the series, with the portrayal of certain characters being controversial, the complete lack of combat, and for just not being all that scary. However, as the years went by, some have looked back at it fondly with it's storyline being seen as one of the most heavy plots in the series, and that some of the puzzles are fun to solve, as well as the therapy sessions being seen as an interesting mechanic that can affect the storyline's characters in different ways.
• The Woobie:
  • Cheryl Mason. Whether she had an abusive parent or not, the poor girl really has not had the nicest of lives.
  • Dahlia becomes one retroactively at the end of the game. Having to deal with the death of her husband and being blamed by her daughter for years has taken a toll on her physically. The audio memories found throughout the game show that Dahlia had it just as bad as her daughter in the aftermath of Harry's death. Averted in the ending where it turns out Dahlia was physically and emotionally abusive to Harry.

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